Movie Review | 'The Back of the World'

Social Injustice Seen Through a Spaniard's Slick Lens

By DAVE KEHR

Published: May 22, 2002

Should documentaries about poverty and oppression necessarily look poor and oppressed? There's certainly something unseemly about them if they don't.

The Spanish production "Back of the World," directed by Javier Corcuera, has been shot with the latest digital equipment and looks as polished as any recent independent feature, and more polished than many. The film jets around the world to look at what Mr. Corcuera regards as prime examples of social injustice: a child laborer in Peru, an exiled Kurdish activist in Sweden and a man who has been on Death Row in Texas since 1986. As the filmmakers build up their frequent-flier miles, they seem painfully unaware of the paradox that their subjects will probably never be able to leave the places where they have been filmed.

The first episode, subtitled "The Child," focuses on 11-year-old Guinder Rodríguez, who lives in a shantytown outside Lima. Because there are no jobs, he and his father work cutting stone from the neighboring hills, a tedious, exhausting process that involves baking the boulders in a fire until they are fragile enough to break. Guinder is smart and articulate and dreams of becoming an accountant. He is much better off than many of his friends, who spend their time begging on the street, wiping windshields, stealing fruit from the market and sniffing glue when they can afford it.

Part 2, "The Word," heads to Stockholm, where Mehdi Zana, once the mayor of the largest Kurdish city in Turkey, lives in self-imposed exile. Returning to Turkey, where he spent 16 years in prison after the military coup of 1980, would mean facing 25 more years' imprisonment. His wife, Leyla Zana, was the first Kurdish woman to be elected to the Turkish Parliament; she has been in prison for six years and, because of her poor health, is likely to die there. "Of the 24 years we have been married," Mr. Zana says, "we have been together barely 4."

The protagonist of the third section, "Life," is also in prison and has no hope of emerging. Thomas Miller-El was convicted of two killings in 1986 and has been waiting to die ever since. As of 2000, when "Back of the World" was filmed, his lawyers had exhausted the available appeals, and he is waiting to learn the date of his execution by lethal injection. (The Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution in February, to examine racial questions in the selection of the jury at his trial.)

Each of these stories is terribly sad and terribly moving in its own right. Yet the film that Mr. Corcuera has spun around them only increases the viewer's sense of helplessness and passivity. No solutions are suggested, no actions are proposed, no reflection is invited. The misery of these people becomes just another voyeuristic spectacle, to be consumed and forgotten.

"Back of the World" opens today at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in the East Village.

THE BACK OF THE WORLD

Directed by Javier Corcuera; written (in Spanish, Kurdish and English, with English subtitles) by Elías Querejeta, Fernando León de Aranoa and Mr. Corcuera; director of photography, Jordi Abusada; edited by Iván Fernández and Nacho Ruiz-Capillas; produced by Gusa Alonso-Pimentel and Bibiana Bergia. At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street at Avenue A, East Village. Running time: 89 minutes. This film is not rated. Forum: Join a Discussion on Movies (Moderated)